You Either Get It Or You Gont

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“Writing poetry is in itself translating, from the mother tongue into another, whether French or German should make no difference. No language is the mother tongue. Writing poetry is rewriting it. That’s why I am puzzled when people talk of French or Russian, etc., poets. A poet may write in French; he cannot be a French poet. That’s ludicrous. I am not a Russian poet and am always astonished to be taken for one and looked upon in this light. The reason one becomes a poet (if it were even possible to become one, if one were not one before all else!) is to avoid being French, Russian, etc., in order to be everything.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva to Boris Pasternak, from Letters: Summer 1926

Jenny Slate, Little Weirds

the mountain goats make music for people who spent their entire lives convinced they would die before they were 17 except now they're 26 and they have a job and friends and hobbies and they're not sure what they're meant to do now that they've survived

“Today, there are too many grifters and too few craftsmen. There are content creators, pop stars, and viral stunt artists, but very few produce truly timeless pieces of work that are labors of love and intended to outlive the creator. Modern artists take shortcuts; few embrace the difficulty of skill. Few are willing to invest their time and genuine interest in something that demands discipline. Few seem to have the patience and discipline required to produce good work that matters. One can argue that technology isn’t all harmful for art, as Michelangelo likely used a chisel when carving the David; but, there is an obvious point in which the convenience of technology starts hurting the sacredness of creation and replacing the beauty in art with nothing but hollow sensation. Technology starts becoming harmful when it is no longer facilitating the intrinsic purpose of art as a tool but utilizing art as a means to an end—whether that be for clout or profit.”

— Did technology kill the craftsman?

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